Johnny’s Mother/Vinny Quotes in Johnny Tremain
‘It’s no good to me. We’ve… moved on to other things.’
‘But it isn’t stealing to take back what Mr. Lyte stole from you.’
‘I don’t want it.’
‘What?’
‘No. I’m better off without it. I want nothing of them. Neither their blood nor their silver… I’ll carry that hamper for you, Cil. Mr. Lyte can have the old cup.
‘But your mother?’
‘She didn’t like it either.’
He took one of [the smocks] from his sea chest in the attic. It was a fine light blue. He had never noticed before how beautiful was the stitching, and it hurt him to think he had been too proud to wear them, for now he was old enough to appreciate the love that had gone into their making. How little his mother had known of the working world to make smocks for a boy who she knew was to become a silversmith! She hadn’t known anything, really, of day labor, the life of apprentices. She had been frail, cast off, sick, and yet she had fought up to the very end for something. That something was himself, and he felt humbled and ashamed.
Johnny put his hands to his face. It was wet and his hands were shaking. He thought of that blue smock his mother had made him, now torn by bullets. Pumpkin had wanted so little out of life. A farm. Cows. True, Rab had got the musket he craved, but Pumpkin wasn’t going to get his farm. Nothing more than a few feet by a few feet at the foot of Boston Common. That much Yankee land he’d hold to Judgement Day.
Johnny’s Mother/Vinny Quotes in Johnny Tremain
‘It’s no good to me. We’ve… moved on to other things.’
‘But it isn’t stealing to take back what Mr. Lyte stole from you.’
‘I don’t want it.’
‘What?’
‘No. I’m better off without it. I want nothing of them. Neither their blood nor their silver… I’ll carry that hamper for you, Cil. Mr. Lyte can have the old cup.
‘But your mother?’
‘She didn’t like it either.’
He took one of [the smocks] from his sea chest in the attic. It was a fine light blue. He had never noticed before how beautiful was the stitching, and it hurt him to think he had been too proud to wear them, for now he was old enough to appreciate the love that had gone into their making. How little his mother had known of the working world to make smocks for a boy who she knew was to become a silversmith! She hadn’t known anything, really, of day labor, the life of apprentices. She had been frail, cast off, sick, and yet she had fought up to the very end for something. That something was himself, and he felt humbled and ashamed.
Johnny put his hands to his face. It was wet and his hands were shaking. He thought of that blue smock his mother had made him, now torn by bullets. Pumpkin had wanted so little out of life. A farm. Cows. True, Rab had got the musket he craved, but Pumpkin wasn’t going to get his farm. Nothing more than a few feet by a few feet at the foot of Boston Common. That much Yankee land he’d hold to Judgement Day.
